Booktalk – KGNU News: Recent Episodes
Booktalk – KGNU News
Host Diana Korte speaks with Karlya Shelton-Benjamin, a Swan of Harlem herself and Denver native who is one of the dancers featured in “The Swans Of Harlem” written by Karen Valby.
It’s the forgotten story of a pioneering group of five Black ballerinas, the first principals in the Dance Theatre of Harlem, who traveled the world as highly celebrated stars in their field and whose legacy was erased from history until now.Karlya Shelton-Benjaminbegan dancing at age 4 with the Colorado Concert Ballet (currently Colorado Ballet). At 17, she became the first person of color to represent the United States in the prestigious Prix de Lausanne ballet competition in Switzerland. Along with performances with the Dance Theatre of Harlem, she’s a founding member of Peridance, andhas taught and coached at Oakland Ballet and Cleo Parker Robinson Dance.
Denver Events:
5/22/24 @ 5 pm, BRIC Fund presents Art and Activism: Swans of Harlem, Cleo Parker Robinson Dance Theatre, 119 Park Ave West, Denver CO 80205
5/25/24 @ 6 pm, Tattered Cover, 2526 E Colfax Ave, Denver CO 80206
- play_arrowBooktalk: Denver-based Karlya Shelton-Benjamin is featured in “Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years Of Sisterhood, And Their Reclamation Of A Groundbreaking History” by Karen ValbyVeronica Straight-Lingo The post Booktalk: Denver-based Karlya Shelton-Benjamin is featured in “Swans of Harlem: Five Black Ballerinas, Fifty Years Of Sisterhood, And Their Reclamation Of A Groundbreaking History” by Karen Valby appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Host Diana Korte speaks with Fly Fisherman David Coggins, author of his fourth book, “The Believer”.
He brings readers along for an enchanting year of fly fishing in Patagonia, Cuba, Belize, Spain, Scotland, Norway, and the U.S. And of course, it’s about more than just the fish. He deftly mixes travel, local cultures, further fishing challenges (some knee-buckling in their disappointment) and details his own experience as life and love crowd his time to fish.
And, since this is fly fishing, after all—there’s always the possibility of abject failure and leaping, glorious reward.
Follow @DavidCoggins
- play_arrow CogginsFINAL.mp3CogginsFINAL.mp3 The post Booktalk: Angler and Travel Writer David Coggins’s “The Believer. A Year In The Fly Fishing Life” appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Host Diana Korte speaks with US Senator Tim Kaine from VA and former Democratic vice-presidential candidate. He is the author of a new memoir, “Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside”.
In 2019, he commemorated both his sixtieth birthday and his twenty-fifth year in public office by literally living a life outside. During weekends and in Senate recess weeks, Kaine—over a period of several years—hiked the 559 miles of the Appalachian Trail that cross Virginia. Biked 321 miles along the Virginia Blue Ridge and canoed 348 miles on the James River. He’s been a Virginia mayor, governor, and US senator and now an outdoorsy politician literally who crisscrossed his state on forest paths, mountain bike trails, and waterways.
- play_arrowKaine First Part.m4aWalk etc The post Booktalk: US Senator & Outdoor Enthusiast Tim Kaine’s “Walk, Ride, Paddle: A Life Outside” appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Host Diana Korte speaks with Don Winslow, bestselling author of CITY IN RUINS.
The lesson for main character Danny Ryan is as hard as it is true: sometimes you must become what you hate to protect what you love. Now a billionaire gambling mogul, he builds an empire of glittering mega-hotels and casinos along the Las Vegas Strip. Battles of money, influence, and bribery soon follow.
This is the last book in a trilogy but also Winslow’s last book period as he’s directing his talents and energies to a new patriotic pursuit. But his 26 books and numerous movies made from them live on. Austin Butler, in his first starring role since his Oscar nominated turn as Elvis Presley, will star as crime boss Danny Ryan in “City On Fire,” an earlier book in this trilogy.
- play_arrowWinslowFINAL.mp3Don Winslow The post Booktalk: Crime Writer Don Winslow’s City in Ruins appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Therapist and Intuitive Life Coach Denise Barnes first used Stress to Strength when counseling cancer patients and loved ones for nineteen years. Proven to help those facing life-threatening illness, it can surely aid people in navigating today’s uncertain world. Clients’ progress and gratitude are inspiring. Her personal use of the model helps her walk her talk.
Join Denise for a free book talk at the Remington Post Clubhouse on April 2nd at 7:00 PM.
The post Denise Barnes: Stress to Strength book talk appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Manal al-Sharif, author of DARING TO DRIVE, grew up in Mecca, Islam’s holiest city. In her teens she was a religious radical, by her twenties she was a college-educated computer security engineer.
Then she lived for a while in Boston, learned to drive and became a women’s rights advocate. Back home she was the first Saudi woman who defied the ban on driving and immediately put the video on YouTube. And, yes, she was arrested.
This interview originally aired June 23, 2017. One year later the Saudi government made it legal for women to drive. Yet several years later, the number of women who have licenses to drive is only a few percent.
- play_arrowBooktalk: Manal al-Sharif’s “Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening”Veronica Straight-Lingo The post Booktalk: Manal al-Sharif’s “Daring to Drive: A Saudi Woman’s Awakening” appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Never one to shy away from controversial topics, Joyce Carol Oates’ novel, “The Sacrifice,” is based on the story of Tawana Brawley of upstate New York who made headlines in the late 1980s with allegations of kidnapping and rape that were later proven false.When we spoke about this book in 2015, JCO was already the author of more than 100 books—novels, short story collections, a memoir, children’s books, poetry, plays, even a libretto for an opera. play_arrowBooktalk: Literary Powerhouse Joyce Carol Oates and “The Sacrifice”Veronica Straight-Lingo Top authors are interviewed on this 10-minute program that captures their words about their books and ideas and often the story behind the story. The show, hosted by Diana Korte and engineered by Gene Korte, is in its 29th year of production.*
The post Booktalk: Literary Powerhouse Joyce Carol Oates and “The Sacrifice” appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Host Diana Korte speaks with New Mexico-based Michael Benanav, a photo-journalist known for searching out and living with nomadic tribes and bringing their compelling stories and images back from distant places.
In “Himalaya Bound: One Family’s Quest to Save Their Animals–And an Ancient Way of Life” he travels to northern India to journey with the Van Gujjars, a tribe of forest-dwelling nomadic water buffalo herders during their annual spring migration into the Himalayas.
This program last aired January 18, 2018.
- play_arrowBooktalk: Michael Benanav’s “Himalayan Bound”Veronica Straight-Lingo Top authors are interviewed on this 10-minute program that captures their words about their books and ideas and often the story behind the story. The show, hosted by Diana Korte and engineered by Gene Korte, is in its 29th year of production.
The post Booktalk: Michael Benanav’s “Himalayan Bound” appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Host Diana Korte speaks with Tracy Clark, author of 6 crime novels including the Cass Raines Chicago Mystery series. FALL is her newest book and second in the Detective Harriett Foster thriller series, a series that’s already been shortlisted for an Edgar Award.
In “FALL” the Chicago PD is on high alert when two city aldermen are found dead: one by apparent suicide, one brutally stabbed in his office, and both with thirty dimes left on their bodies—a betrayer’s payment. With no other clues, the question is, Who else has a debt to pay?
Detective Harriet Foster is on the case before the killer can strike again. But even with the help of her partner, Detective Vera Li, and the rest of their team, Harriet has little to go on and a lot at risk. There’s no telling who the killer’s next target is or how many will come next.
Follow @tracypc6161
- play_arrowTracyClarkFINAL.mp3Veronica Straight-Lingo The post Booktalk: Crime Novelist Tracy Clark’s FALL (2nd in Harriet Foster Series) appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On this week’s Book Talk, Diana Korte speaks with R. David Edmunds, author of 12 books about Native Americans. His newest title “Voices in the Drum” features 9 stories that span hundreds of years.
The stories range from tracing residents of Mound City, AL as it existed a century or so before Columbus to what it was like for a job-hunting family in the 1950s to move from a reservation in the Dakotas to Denver.
TUNE IN for the main misconceptions non-Natives have about Indians, what it takes to be counted as a member of a tribe, and who are the unsung heroes in Native American history.
- play_arrowNative American historian R. David Edmund’s new book on voices from Native American pastVeronica Straight-Lingo The post Native American historian R. David Edmund’s new book on voices from Native American past appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
On this edition of Booktalk KGNU talks with Cary Elwes who plays Westley, the dashing character in the cult movie classic, A Princess Bride.
Elwes’s book, “As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride,” explores the making of A Princess Bride and its unexpected popularity which didn’t begin until ten years after it was released.
Listen Here:
- play_arrowCary Elwes inconceivable tales behind the making of Princess BrideKGNU News Often considered one of the best such scenes in movies, here’s the “Princess Bride Sword Fight”:
KGNU originally published this interview on December 19, 2014.
Book interviews top authors and captures their words about their books, ideas, and often the story behind the story. Hosted by Diana Korte and engineered by Gene Korte, Booktalk has been in production for over 20 years.
The post Cary Elwes inconceivable tales behind the making of Princess Bride appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
Booktalk host Diana Korte speaks with speaks with Douglas Preston, author of about 40 books. His latest is a collection of 13 previously published magazine-length nonfiction articles, “The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder.”
His explorations and some of the stories in this book have taken him from the haunted country of Italy and the largest tomb in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings to the booby-trapped Money Pit on Oak Island in Nova Scotia and a cannibal site in the American Southwest.
Listeners might be familiar with some of Preston’s other books including his co-authored fiction series featuring FBI special agent Pendergast.
- play_arrowLostTombFINAL.mp3KGNU News Tune in for why many of his books include archeologists, what he found when he was the first to enter an Egyptian burial chamber that had been sealed for millennia, and his one piece of advice for would be writers that might be quite difficult to accomplish.
Top authors are interviewed on this program that captures their words about their books and ideas and often the story behind the story. Hosted by Diana Korte and engineered by Gene Korte, Booktalk has been in production for over 20 years.
The post Writer & explorer Douglas Preston’s “The Lost Tomb: And Other Real-Life Stories of Bones, Burials, and Murder” appeared first on KGNU Community Radio.
James McBride’s newest book is THE HEAVEN & EARTH GROCERY STORE, a novel about small-town secrets and the people who keep them. As the story begins, it’s 1972. Workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania are digging the foundations for a new development, […]
“I Have Something to Tell You” by Chasten Buttigieg is the young adult adaptation of his candid bestselling memoir about growing up gay in his small Midwestern town. He is on a 30+ stop nationwide in-person tour, including places where […]
Jake Tapper regularly interviews world leaders and other newsmakers, but he also brings his knowledge of politics and the past to his political thrillers that are historically accurate. “All The Demons Are Here” is set in 1977. The story revolves […]
The latest historical novel, LADY TAN’S CIRCLE OF WOMEN, from writer Lisa See who is the author of 12 books, is inspired by the true story of a woman physician from 15th-century China whose remedies are still used today some […]
Gloria Steinem, author of My Life on the Road, had an itinerant childhood. When she was a young girl, her father would pack the family in the car every fall and drive across country searching for adventure and trying to […]
Silvia Pettem’s “In Search of the Blonde Tigress” dips into the world of sensationalized Chicago newspaper headlines in the 1930s that claimed Eleanor was not only “the blonde tigress,” but also “the most dangerous woman alive.” But a closer look at […]
Award-winning African ecologist Paula Kahumbu, author of SECRETS OF THE ELEPHANTS, is one of the world’s preeminent advocates for elephant conservation and the fight against illegal poaching of elephants for the ivory trade. Her gorgeous co-authored National Geographic coffee table […]
The always fun Lisa Scottoline is back with her 37th novel, LOYALTY, a historical novel about the beginnings of the Mafia on the island of Sicily in the 1800’s. Readers will be transported to the dramatic and ruggedly beautiful island […]
Steven Simon, author of seven books, is currently a fellow at MIT (Mass. Inst. Tech) after spending nearly 40 years specializing in the Middle East in a variety of high-level jobs both in and out of government. In his newest […]
Inspired by a 25-year-old article about evacuated British children revisiting their U.S. foster homes as adults, Laura Spence-Ash tells her own well researched story, BEYOND THAT, THE SEA. It follows the lives of two families over three decades. Their lives […]
Former Associated Press Mexico City Bureau Chief Katherine Corcoran‘s IN THE MOUTH OF THE WOLF A Murder, A Cover-up, and The True Cost of Silencing the Press reports some of the facts why 85 Mexican journalists have been killed in […]
In co-author Marc Schultz’s THE GOOD LIFE what makes for a happy life, a fulfilling life? A good life? The simple but surprising answer is: relationships. The stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying, and […]
Elaine Weiss’s The Woman’s Hour: The Great Fight to Win the Vote is the true story of the suffragettes. These are the female leaders who—in the face of enormous opposition—fought for and won American women’s right to vote in 1920. […]
Jennifer Herrera’s debut thriller and first in a series is THE HUNTER. After reckless behavior costs NYPD detective Leigh O’Donnell her job and her marriage, she returns with her four-year-old daughter to her beautiful hometown of Copper Falls, Ohio in […]
My guest is artist and singer Melissa Newman, one of the 5 daughters of actor Paul Newman who died in 2008. She spoke with me about her dad’s posthumous memoir, “PAUL NEWMAN, The Extraordinary Life of an Ordinary Man.” It […]
LONGPATH by futurist Ari Wallach is about a mindset that looks at the future where new ways aren’t quite here yet and the old ways don’t work anymore. Drawing on history, theology, neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and social technologies, Wallach teaches […]
“I feel lucky to do what I do. I write about real people, often by living their lives for a while—visiting their lives, you might say. Trying them on for size. Though there are easier ways to make a living, […]
Chris McDougall’s “Running with Sherman: The Donkey with the Heart of a Hero” introduces us to a small farm in rural Pennsylvania and the McDougall family and their menagerie (donkeys, rams, chickens, fainting goats) who live there. The author’s new […]
With INVISIBLE STORM, Jason Kander has written the book he himself needed in his darkest moments of PTSD. After Afghanistan, his day job was politics as a rising star in the Democratic party, first in his native Missouri and then […]
Private investigator Elvis Cole and his enigmatic partner Joe Pike are back on the case in this 23rd novel, RACING THE LIGHT, by Robert Crais whose thrillers have been translated into 42 languages. Adele Schumacher isn’t a typical worried mom. […]
RIVER OF THE GODS by bestselling historian Candice Millard is her fourth book. Known for her meticulously researched books, her newest is an adventure tale that takes place in uncharted territory in Africa in the mid-1800s. For millennia the location […]
Richard Osman is an author, a well-known television personality and comedian in the UK. His newest book is The Bullet That Missed in the popular “Thursday Murder Club” series that has already sold in the millions. A quartet of […]
Patricia Schultz of “1000 Places to See Before You Die” fame has authored a different kind of book this time. “Why We Travel: 100 Reasons to Get Up and Go” pairs beautiful color photos with pearls of wisdom, lists, and […]
Kimberly Garza’s debut novel, “The Last Karankawas” explores modern, diverse south Texas. She takes readers to the salty aired streets of Galveston where a tight-knit community of Mexican and Filipino American families who live on the Texas coast. When word […]
An American retired judge of the Superior Court of California, LaDoris Hazzard Cordell was also the first black female judge in the northern part of the state. Her memoir, “HER HONOR, My Life on the Bench…What Works, What’s Broken, and […]
Ryan Busse, author of “GUNFIGHT,” is a proud gun owner, sportsman, environmentalist, and conservationist and a former firearms executive who’s written an insider’s view of the radicalization of the US gun industry. Busse explains how and when the US gun […]
Colorado-based Mark Lee Gardner’s ninth book, THE EARTH IS ALL THAT LASTS is a dual biography of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull, the two most legendary and consequential American Indian leaders. They and their Sioux and Cheyenne warriors crushed Lt. […]
David Gergen has been a White House adviser to four presidents (Nixon, Ford, Reagan & Clinton) of different parties, CNN senior political analyst, and founder of the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School. In his newest book, […]
Bill McKibben is an educator, environmental activist, and author of more than a dozen books. His newest is a memoir, “The Flag, The Cross and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What […]
OVERBOARD by crime writer Sara Paretsky is her 21st book in her series about her legendary detective, V.I. Warshawski. As this book begins V.I. is on her way home from an all-night surveillance job and is led by her dogs […]
Colorado-based Paul Holes, author of UNMASKED, specializes in cold case and serial predator crimes. He began his career in the Contra Costa County (CA) Sheriff’s Office in California’s Bay Area. He was part of the team that found the Golden […]
Co-author of dozens of travel guidebooks, Brandon Presser’s newest title is THE FAR LAND: 200 Years of Murder, Mania, And Mutiny In The South Pacific. The mutiny on the Bounty occurred in the South Pacific in 1789 when Fletcher Christian […]
WAYS & MEANS by Roger Lowenstein reveals the largely untold story of how Lincoln used the urgency and perils of the Civil War to transform a group of states into a nation. He describes the differences in how the North and […]
Ted Conover, who grew up in Denver, is the author of Immersion. A Writer’s Guide to Going Deep. He has ridden the rails with hobos, crossed the border with Mexican immigrants, and guarded prisoners in Sing Sing. Considered the master of […]
ANGELS OF THE PACIFIC by Elise Hooper (her fourth novel) tells the powerful story of American military nurses kept as prisoners for nearly three years during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II. Many of them had […]
Brit Bennett’s “The Vanishing Half”, like her first book, “The Mothers,” has been a smash hit in the world of books. At age 16, Desiree and Stella ran off to New Orleans, two hours away, but “after a year, the […]
“The Steal” co-authored by Mark Bowden in week-by-week, state-by-state fashion concentrates on the 64 days between Election Day, November 3 and January 5th. All the judges in the 61 election lawsuits during this period made their unanimous decisions against Trump’s […]
The Farmer’s Lawyer by North Dakota attorney and advocate Sarah Vogel is a memoir about her successful landmark class action lawsuit against the federal government. She did it on behalf of 240,000 family farmers facing illegal foreclosures during the 1980s […]
Prolific (36 books) storyteller Ken Follett, author of the contemporary thriller, “NEVER,” says, “When I was doing the research for “Fall of Giants” I was shocked to realize that the First World War was a war that nobody wanted…I came […]
Need a little pandemic-times cheering up? Dip into Todd Doughty’s “Little Pieces of Hope. Happy-Making Things in a Difficult World.” It’s already worked its magic for thousands of readers. It’s a charming collection of lists, musings, prompts, and illustrations—from the […]
“Cloud Cuckoo Land” by Anthony Doerr takes readers on a 600-year epic journey. There are three storylines: Anna and Omeir, on opposite sides of the formidable city wall during the 1453 siege of Constantinople; teenage idealist Seymour and gentle octogenarian […]
Bestselling and award-winning historian Nathaniel Philbrick‘s Travels with George is a blended account of two road trips separated by about 230 years. In the fall of 1789, Washington, only six months into his presidency, set out on his first of […]
Dylan Thuras is co-author of Gastro Obscura A Food Adventurer’s Guide and The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid. His newest food book has 500 entries that span all seven continents and fifty states. Complete with photographs and illustrations, it’s all […]
“The Devil in the Gallery” is a lavishly illustrated book, the latest of more than a dozen books by Noah Charney. It’s a guided tour of the history of art through its scandals, rivalries, and shocking acts, each of which […]
This book, “How Magicians Think. Misdirection, Deception, and Why Magic Matters,” is my love letter to magic,” says Jay, “and it answers the questions people ask me every night after the show.” This book is divided into 52 essays, the […]
“For over a decade, Jennifer Reich has been studying the phenomenon of vaccine refusal from the perspectives of parents who distrust vaccines and the corporations that make them, as well as the health care providers and policymakers who see them […]
“Small, director of Columbia University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, puts forgetting in a new light in his eye-opening and reassuring debut. While the standard view in science has been that forgetting is a malfunction of memory, Small makes a case […]
“From her many well-loved novels, Hilma Wolitzer–now ninety-one years old and at the top of her game–has gained a reputation as one of our best fiction writers, who “raises ordinary people and everyday occurrences to a new height.” (Washington Post) […]
“Edward Fosca is a murderer. Of this Mariana is certain. But Fosca is untouchable. A handsome and charismatic Greek Tragedy professor at Cambridge University, Fosca is adored by staff and students alike—particularly by the members of a secret society of […]
“Cold Case Chronicles” tells the stories of victims – some missing, some murdered and some with changed identities. All are true, and each are mysterious in their own ways. The cases in this nonfiction narrative date from 1910 through the […]
“Twenty-six-year-old editorial assistant Nella Rogers is tired of being the only Black employee at Wagner Books. Fed up with the isolation and microaggressions, she’s thrilled when Harlem-born and bred Hazel starts working in the cubicle beside hers. They’ve only just […]
“The change was immediate. The country opened up west of Harrisburg and suddenly we could drink from streams and build fires without getting caught and sleep pretty much anywhere we wanted. We’d walked the railroad track from Washington to Baltimore […]
As a child, Jory Fleming was wracked by uncontrollable tantrums, had no tolerance for people, and couldn’t manage the outside world. Slightly more than a decade later, he was bound for England, selected to attend one of the world’s premier […]
“Tessa, born and raised in Belfast, is a news producer for the BBC. She is also the single mother of a six-month-old son, who she is raising in the shadow of escalating threats to peace by a reemerging IRA. While […]
“A floundering second-generation teen growing up in Atlanta’s suburbs, Neil Narayan doesn’t have the same drive as everyone around him. His parents’ expectations for him are high, but he just wants his neighbor Anita Dayal. But Anita has a secret: […]
“I grew up in a family of foodies, chefs, butchers, and hunters (yes, it’s true). My household had a flock of chickens (both for eggs and for eating), the freezers were stocked full of meat, steaks were cooked rare, and […]
“In the decade I’ve worked for the New York Times, I’ve reported from terrorist hot spots in West Africa, to wildfire ravaged California, and the globe. And as soon as I file each story, I do one thing before I […]
New Yorker staff writer John Colapinto is the author of five books and numerous science-linked articles. This is the Voice begins with a story about how he blew out his own voice singing in a band. Along the way, he […]
This debut novel opens up in West Africa with a death, and is a portrait of a modern family. Listen in for Taiye’s timely comments on the biggest misunderstandings Americans have about Africans and vice versa. This interview originally aired […]
Pediatrician and public health advocate Mona Hanna-Attisha, author of “What The Eyes Don’t See. A Story Of Crisis, Resistance, And Hope In An American City,” put the recent lead-tainted public water supply in Flint, Michigan on the national news. […]